Surprising an audience with a unique visual twist during a business presentation can make your slideshow memorable. One way to do this is to add a moving video background to one of your PowerPoint slides. While giving a presentation, you may pause on a slide to speak with the audience or discuss the slide’s contents. When you do this, you’ll probably want the video to keep playing regardless of its duration. By making a small adjustment to the video's properties, you can make the moving background loop indefinitely.

1. Launch PowerPoint and open one of your presentations.

2. Move to the Slides/Outline pane on PowerPoint's left side and click the "Slides" tab to view thumbnail images of the presentation's slides. Click one of the slides to view it in the Slide pane.

3. Move to the Ribbon, click "Insert" and then click "Video" to open the Insert Video window. This window displays your hard drive's files and folders. Double-click a video you'd like to use as your slide's background. PowerPoint adds it to the slide on top of the slide's other objects.

4. Find the Ribbon’s Video Tools section, click "Playback" and then click the "Loop Until Stopped" check box to place a check mark there.

5. Click the "Format" tab and click the arrow next to "Send Backward" to view several menu items. Click the "Send to Back" item to place the video behind the slide's other objects.

6. Click the "Start" drop-down box and select "Automatically" if you want the video to play when the slide appears. Otherwise, select "On Click." If you choose this option, you must click the slide to make the video play.

7. Add additional objects to the slide as needed. They will appear on top of the video because you set the video as the slide's background.

Tips

When your presentation runs, the video plays when it reaches the slide that has the video. If the video ends while you're viewing the slide, it begins again and repeat indefinitely.

Adjust the video’s brightness and contrast by right-clicking the video and then clicking "Format Video" to display the Format Video dialog window. Drag the “Brightness” and “Contrast” sliders left and right to change the video’s brightness and contrast.

If you click the “Presets” drop-down box in the Format Video dialog window, you can click one of the color presets that appear in the drop-down box. Clicking one of these presets allows you to change the video’s color and create unique colorization effects.

About the Author

After majoring in physics, Kevin Lee began writing professionally in 1989 when, as a software developer, he also created technical articles for the Johnson Space Center. Today this urban Texas cowboy continues to crank out high-quality software as well as non-technical articles covering a multitude of diverse topics ranging from gaming to current affairs.